What's the Hitch?
by Commander Argus
Summary: Kim goes after Shego, who has prepared her worst nightmare!
1. Kim's Worst Nightmare

_**What's the Hitch? – a Trinity Sitch Interlude

* * *

**_

"Ronald, you are grounded."

Anne Possible said as she pulled the thermometer from Ron's mouth and checked it. The mercury was reading 101°, though anyone who had eyes could tell the poor boy was sick.

"Mrs. Dr. P…" kaff, kaff "…I don't get sick!"

"Of course you do. You just wait until everybody else has been sick around you and you choose from the very strongest of the germs to get sick on. Plus, I told you. Call me Mom or I'm going to bring the other kind of thermometer over next time."

"Yes, Mom." He sniffed, pulling the covers up over his reddened nose.

"Ron, don't be such a baby." Kim said from nearby, her arms crossed. With the exception of an occasional cough, she was already over her cold. She knew this was coming. Her mother was right, every time enough people around them got sick, it eventually worked its way to Ron, and, if any germ was strong enough to get through his rather good immune system, it was strong enough to wreak havoc on him.

"Well, Kimmie, would you like me to make up the bed in the spare room, or do you want to come home and sleep in your old room for a few nights?" her mother asked with a sly smile.

"I…er…uh."

"It's alright Kim. It's pretty obvious that 'your' room hasn't been used much recently, if at all. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Your are twenty-one after all."

"It's just, we, you know, uh."

"Uh huh." She nodded once more, the smile never wavering.

Kim and Ron had gotten their apartment at the start of their Senior year at Middleton University. They made a point with their parents that they were going to be roommates, at least until their wedding. They had even (finally) set a date: the 4th of July later that year, following graduation at the end of May.

Old habits died hard, so there had always been the pretense that Kim had her own room. Apparently she never heard when her father asked Ron "When are you going to make an honest woman out of my Kimmie-cub?" Then again, maybe she heard it, it just somehow didn't sink in.

Her father's and Ron's relationship had come a long way from the days he would threaten to send him into high orbit if he did anything to sully Kim's virtue.

Kim's bracelet started chirping insistently.

_Beep-Beep-De-Beep!_

"One of these days, we're going to have to get a new ring-tone." Ron said wearily.

"Ron!" she said to hush him as she touched the answer key on her latest Kimmunicator. "What's the sitch, wade?"

"How's the cold, Kim?" a holographic projection of Wade emitted by her bracelet asked?

"Much better, thank you!"

"Has it hit he-who-never-gets-sick yet?"

Ron chose that moment to start hacking. Anne made him sit up in the bed and started patting his back, making him drink a glass of water.

"I'll take that was a definite yes." Wade admitted. "You up to taking one on alone Kim?"

"What is it?"

"It's Shego. I intercepted a coded message that she's got something planned for you. Something about your worst nightmare."

Kim frowned. She hadn't seen Sherry in months and she had assumed they had buried the hatchet years ago. "Where is she?" she asked in a low voice.

"She's in the old Mt. Middleton lair. Satellite scans show a lot of recent activity there, plus I've got some pretty solid scans on her. Kim, that means she's powered up again."

"Okay, Wade, I'm on it. Warm up the cruiser for me."

"You got it." The hologram winked off as she went into a walk-in closet to change into her mission suit.

"Kim, you're not going alone." Her mother said from her seat on the bed.

"Mom, I'd think you would be the last person on Earth who would let Ron go on a mission in that condition."

"Of course not. I'm talking about me."

Kim stood in the door of the closet, he blouse half undone.

"Mom, do you have any idea how dangerous Shego can be?"

"I know exactly how much damage she has actually managed to do to you over the years. I also know you are not at one-hundred percent right now."

"I'm fine." She protested, stifling a sniff.

"I also think I'm one of the last people she would harm. I delivered her baby for goodness sake…Kim! No using the Puppy-Dog-Pout on me!"

Kim's lower lip slowly pulled back in. "Fine. Just put on one of my spare suits… please?"

"Of course, dear." She joined her in the closet, closing the door in order to spare Ron seeing his future mother-in-law change into one of the dark gray and blue super-suits.

* * *

The lair had not changed much in the intervening years, save the thick coating of dust everywhere. One thing about the grime, however, it clearly showed there had been recent activity here. 

The last time Kim had been here, Drakken had stolen an advanced combat fighter, hoping he could unlock the secrets of its powerful weapons. Since that time the place had been sealed up by Global Justice. There should have been sensors implanted just in case anyone tried to use the abandoned base again, but a call to Assistant Director Bedarest revealed they hadn't been tripped. That meant the three life-signs Wade detected here had found some way to bypass them.

The two women tip-toed down the main corridor. The glass walls of the now-empty labs were gone, removed when all of Drakken's old equipment was removed. The place seemed empty as a tomb.

"Careful, Mom. This place is full of trap doo…" she was cut off as the floor gave way beneath them. In an instant she knew they had crossed the very same spot where she had been with Ron when they were trapped by Drakken back when they were trying to rescue her father from the place. They slid down the chute, landing relatively safely in the large chamber that once housed a giant tank with a mutant tentacle monster and one of the infamous killer death rays.

"I knew you would find me here, Princess!" a familiar feminine voice bellowed from above.

Shego stepped out onto a balcony, dressed in her familiar green and black body suit. A wicked smile crossed her otherwise stunning features as she surveyed the two women on the floor below.

"I've got a little surprise for you, Kimmie!" She pointed over their heads at a massive sphere in the center of the room. It looked like the larger third of DNAmy's Genetic Zipper. There was a loud clacking sound as the two halves started to split. "It's your WORST NIGHTMARE!" She cackled as the interior was unveiled.

Anne Possible gasped.

Kim Possible looked at the horror inside the sphere, put her hands to her face, and SCREAMED!

* * *

**Next: The Nightmare REVEALED!**


	2. The Nightmare Revealed

**_What's the Hitch_**

* * *

**Part 2: The Nightmare!**

* * *

"That is just…SICK!" Kim couldn't even begin to keep the disgust out of her voice. 

"And wrong." Her mother finished, equally appalled by what she saw.

"Mom, that's Ron's line." She said, the pique still evident in her voice.

"No, Kim, he would have gone straight to 'wrongsick.'… I think."

Shego ignited her fists, stepped off the edge of the balcony and executed a perfect double flip before lighting on the floor below. "What's wrong, Kimmie? I had it made especially for you!"

Kim turned to face her, her own fists clenching, anger flaring in her eyes. "This…this is just so…evil!"

"I thought you'd never notice." Her lips curled up into her trademark vile smirk,her black lipstick shining in the light beaming from inside the sphere.

"How could you do this, Sherry?" Anne possible asked, using Shego's given name. "I thought you would use the information I gave you for good!"

"You helped her with this?" Kim asked, shock evident in her voice.

"I didn't imagine she would do something like this." She said in defense.

Shego walked into the split globe and brought the horror out, holding it at arms length. Kim's expression became even more sour seeing it up close.

It was a sea-foam green taffeta and metallic silver bridesmaid dress. It looked like the product of an unholy tryst between a southern belle dress and Shego's 'Team Go' costume, the silver taking the place of the black panels. Shego snickered, followed by a barely stifled giggle. She broke out into honest laughter as Kim's face deepened into a scowl.

"Oh, well, Kim. It's an old tradition for the bride to pick out less-than-attractive dresses for their bridesmaids." Her mother was trying to keep from laughing herself, finally realizing that Kim had been played by her old nemesis.

"But Mom! I've already picked out nice cocktail dresses for my bridesmaids Monique is going to be my Maid-of-Honor, if I make her wear…that…"

Her mother looked up at the ceiling, whistling slightly.

"O…kay!" Shego said. "Remember a couple years back when I said you were the brains of Team Possible? I take it back now."

"Huh?"

"Kim, I think this is Sherry's way of saying you are not the only one getting married this summer."

"You mean?"

"That's right, Princess. You're the one wearing that dress in a couple weeks." Her smirk was quickly amping up to full power.

"I'm what? You mean all this has been you elaborate way of saying you're getting…married?"

"See, I knew your little cheerleader mind could grasp the concept."

"And you're in on this?" She turned to her mother, hands on her hips.

"She called last week to get your dress size. I just had no idea she still wanted to get back at you so bad."

"Hey, I do what I can with the truce still on." Shego shrugged.

"The truce? What truce? I thought your leaving me alone had more to do with you trying to go legit."

"Punkin, how many times do I have to tell you. I'm evil. I'm the wicked green witch of Mt. Middleton. The only reason I've been staying out of your sights is because my 'sweetie' hasn't done anything to get Global Justice after him the last couple years."

The dark cloud over Kim faded a bit as she got a quizzical expression on her face. "You mean tha…" She started as a small shape collided with her legs.

"Aunt Kimmie!" a tiny voice squealed.

Actually, the words sounded a lot more like _ann emmy_, but she knew what the toddler was saying. Kim carefully pulled the little girl's arms from around her legs and picked her up. "You're getting so big, Amethyst!"

"I'm fa-ree." The dark haired little girl said, trying to hold up the requisite number of fingers, her 'th' sound coming out as an 'f'. She was the spitting image of her mother (when she wasn't powered up and therefore green) with fair skin and long, very dark hair. The only differences were having very dark brown hair instead of black and her eyes were sparkling blue. Her violet and black jumper, patterned after the Team Go uniform, completed the image.

Shego took her daughter from Kim, hanging the dress on a convenient piece of equipment. As she took the child her skin started to change from light green to a pale peach color, her eyes darkening from bright green to brown. Right before them Shego changed back into Sherry Godfrey.

Seeing her old nemesis like this was, to put it mildly, bizarre. After fighting against her for so long, the image of her holding her child, so obviously full of love was the last thing she would have ever expected. Despite her ire for the joke she had played on her, Kim was starting to smile. She noticed her mother was smiling too. They both remembered a frightened young woman showing up at their home, about to give birth, too afraid to go to the hospital, knowing that by doing so she would likely end up in prison and her child, who already would never know her father, would also be without a mother.

Anne Possible was a practicing neurosurgeon but she was still a doctor. She delivered the baby right there in their guest room. Later, in secret, she went to the new mother and made her swear an oath that the war with her daughter was over. She agreed, saying she already considered it so since she still honored the truce Amethyst's father called between the two women.

Kim just saw the change in Sherry as a win, not only having an enemy turning into a hesitant friend, but seeing a sort of redemption for her old foe.

Okay, she was still angry she had been tricked into believing she had reverted to her old tricks and that dress was just so…UGLY!

Thinking about the dress brought Kim's mind back to her earlier train of thought. Something Sherry said about her "Sweetie" keeping himself out of trouble…

_No!_

_It couldn't be!_

She knew the two had been back together, had even spoken to him briefly when he came looking for her after Neil died and she had seen them together from time to time but…

_No!_

"I'm not sure if I really want to know this but who exactly are you getting married to?" Kim asked sheepishly. _Please don't say Drakken! Please don't say Drakken!_

"You don't know? I'm marrying Drew! Who did you think I was talking about?"

Kim was having a hard time picking her jaw up off the floor.

"Drew? Doctor Drakken? You're going to marry Drakken? He's so…so…"

"If you say ugly, Princess, I'm going to smack you, truce or no truce." She said dangerously.

"I was going to say old. He's old enough to be your father!"

"Only if he started having kids real early. He's _your_ father's age, but I'm over six years older than you. Drew is only about twenty years older than me, but that doesn't matter since I love him."

"Well, if it works for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones…" Kim's mother added, trying to help.

Sherry changed the subject. "Do you know what Ammie's first words were?" She cooed at her daughter, "Da da! When she said that, Drew looked like he had been sucker punched in the gut. I thought at first it upset him but when I tried to take her from him I realized he was crying. Drew actually crying because she called him Daddy!"

"My Daddy's blue!" Amethyst said excitedly.

"From then on Drew was Daddy. It changed something in him and it changed something in me. I know he's had feeling for me for a while but I suddenly realized I had some pretty strong feelings of my own for him. Not long after that, we kinda got together. It's really different than it was with Neil, but it's still really good.

"Not to mention," she added with a sly smile, "his tiny hands are really good for…"

"Too much…info!" Kim cut her off.

"What? I was going to say 'massages.' What did you think?"

"Never mind." Kim blushed slightly.

Anne was blushing too for thinking along the same lines her daughter was. Quickly she tried to steer the conversation to yet another subject. "Don't tell me the three of you are living in this…cave."

"Good lord no. I had enough of that back then. We've been renting a bungalow over at the Mt. Middleton Ski Lodge. Cutest little A-Frame, right near the slopes. Nah, I'm just here to use the _Costumealator_." Before either woman could ask what that was, she activated her powers, once again turning her skin and eyes green. She typed a few commands into a keyboard, then gripped two handles, flaring up her fists. The green fire was absorbed into the machine which closed with a clang, followed by clanking and whirring sounds.

"So that's why you've been using your powers!" Kim said, understanding Sherry was the energy source for the machine. There was a loud 'clack' and the halves started to split once more.

"I figured your friend Wade would pick up on that, since that's how he usually tracked me, so I called him myself so I could have some fun with you." The Costumealator swung wide, revealing yet another dress.

It was just as hideous as the first one, but several times larger.

Warning bells started going off in Kim's mind. "Who else were you planning to ask?"

"I've got a couple evil girlfriends I was going to ask. I want you to be my maid-of-honor, by the way."

"Wow, um, sure! But who is that one for?"

"Oh, this one is for Amy Hall-Fisk!"

* * *

Next: **_"Bachelorette Party!"_**


	3. Girl's Night Out

**_What's the Hitch_**

* * *

**Part 3 Girl's Night Out**

* * *

"Girlfriend, I think old Shego's HABOT." 

"Say what?"

"Had a Beer or Twelve." Monique translated, taking another drink of her soda.

"Somehow I think she is well past just beer." Bonnie snorted, stifling a giggle. The three women watched from their table as one of the two guests of honor at tonight's celebration took the stage. The music started and Sherry launched into Gretchen Wilson's _All Jacked Up_ with gusto. Somehow the song seemed _so_ appropriate, given the circumstances.

She climbed down off the stage as the other bar patrons cheered and made her way to Kim's table.

"I had no idea you could sing like that." Kim said, gingerly licking some of the salt off the edge of her glass.

"Well, I get plenty of practice when Drew drags me to his favorite karaoke place." She took a look at Kim's nearly full margarita glass. "How many of those have _you_ had, Princess?"

"I'm, ah, still working on the first one."

Sherry raised an eyebrow. "'Kay, Kimmie, this is your party too. Live a little! It's not a real shindig until we have to call a cab!"

"I…I don't really drink."

"Shego's right, K, bottoms up!" Bonnie leered across the table. Her own glass was bare even of ice cubes.

"Go for it, Kim. I've got your back, I'm the DD tonight." Monique said.

She eyed the drink as if it would rise out of the glass and bite her. She'd only ordered it when the rest of the women at the table had, thinking mainly she would nurse it through the evening, just to be social. Warily, she picked it up and took a sip, then an honest swallow of the pale green concoction.

The face she made sent her old foe and her old rival into gales of laughter.

"Okay, okay Kimmie. I get it, just loosen up a bit."

"You're the one who wanted us to go to a male stripper club, this is a loose as I want to get."

Bonnie chirped up again. "I've thought about it, Shego, and I'll do it."

"You sure, cheerleader?"

"Yeah, but you've gotta stop calling me that. My name's Bonnie, remember?"

"Oh I remember fine, you're the one who keeps forgetting I don't answer to that name any more."

"Sorry." She said, accepting another drink from the waitress.

"Are you really, really sure about this Bonnie?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Gives me another chance at grabbing the bouquet, if you know what I mean. Better chance at Sherry here's wedding than at yours, considering my competition is mainly you and that other woman, and the two of you don't count since she's married and you're getting married in a few weeks."

"Oh, I'm going for it!" Kim's mouth slid into a sly grin.

"Bring it on!" Bonnie said with mock danger.

"Bad news on that front." Sherry said, sipping her own fresh drink. "Amy's not coming."

"Aw no! Why not?" Kim asked.

"Seems ole monkey boy doesn't want to have a thing to do with it if you and Spankable are there."

"Sherry!" her eyes carried the usual warning about her pet names for Ron.

"Not apologizing tonight, sweetie pie. Gonna get 'em all out of my system."

Kim thought furiously of a comeback involving Drakken, but all she could come up with at the moment was 'Blue Boy' so she let it rest.

"So what are you so concerned with?" Bonnie asked Kim.

"Oh, nothing." She said sweetly.

Sherry guessed where the line of questioning was going and decided to deflect it a moment. "So, Kimmie, what's your dress going to look like?" She gave her a meaningful look that she hoped said _your wedding dress, Princess_.

She caught the look and pressed a couple keys on her bracelet. A holographic image of a shimmering white strapless dress hung in the air.

Monique stared at the hazy image dreamily. Bonnie raised an eyebrow. Sherry just commented, "It's so…white."

"So?" Kim asked, confused.

"Well, if you don't mind everyone in attendance saying 'bullcrap' to themselves. You've lived with the Sidekick-Formerly-Known-as-the-Buffoon for what, a year now?"

Kim said nothing, instead taking a large swallow of her drink.

"See, here's what I'm wearing." She pulled a photo out of her jeans pocket of a light blue gown with a short train.

Kim scrunched her brow. "Beautiful, but don't you think it's going to clash with the bridesmaid dresses?"

Sherry started laughing (long and hard and full of youthful abandon, if you know what I mean) finally getting her composure back well enough to speak again after a few minutes. Bonnie was having a giggle fit herself, apparently in on the joke.

"Gotcha, Princess. You really thought I was going to have anyone wear that thing? Man, you are gullible." She pulled out another photo, this time of a nice, navy blue dress.

Kim finished off her drink and waved to the server for another.

* * *

Several hours later Monique deposited a visibly wobbly Kim off at her apartment. She fervently hoped the guy's party was either winding down or over. Cold fear gripped her, knowing what she would likely be in for by morning. 

She was walking up to the stoop as the front door opened. None other than Josh Mankey emerged, fishing in his pockets for the keys to his red sports car. "Hi Kim!" he said cheerily in his usually mellow way.

"So, did my fiancé behave himself?" She asked, not really expecting an honest answer.

"Oh, he's still going at it pretty hot and heavy up there. I'll tell you what, I'm not going to be right for quite a while after hearing those kinds of sounds coming from him." He smiled and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Good night and congratulations." He turned and headed for his car.

What was going on up there?

Despite her present condition, she sprinted up the stairs to her door. Ron's voice carried through it. "Oooooh, Bay bay YEAH! Who's your daddy?"

Almost in a panic, she turned the key and walked in. Immediately she saw the crown of corn silk hair over the back of the couch. Visions of all the bachelor parties she had seen in the movies all rolled through her head at once.

Then she noticed Felix's chair sitting off to the side. It seemed everyone else had left already but the two young men had _something_ capturing their full attention.

"Oh, no. Not yet, I'm not ready yet! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He moaned.

Kim shot around the couch, hoping beyond hope she wouldn't see some skanky stripper performing some lewd act.

She was just in time to see Ron's _Zombie Mayhem_ character meet it's untimely demise. Seeing Kim, Felix hit the pause button before his character could join the other.

"Hi Kim! How was the party?"

She shook her head in wonder. Hours of drinking and carrying on with the women and all her man could do was sit at home playing video games.

She loved him so.

* * *

The cemetery was one of Charlotte's older ones. Although, officially the plots were open to all who could afford a space there, in practice there were sections that were clearly for certain ethnic groups. One such section bore many names of distinct Greek heritage, many of the older monuments including ceramic tiles depicting photos or paintings of the departed loved ones. 

The headstone the slender woman stood near was somewhat newer than the rest, made more along the lines of a conventional memorial; a granite slab with rough hewn edges and a polished face. She knelt at it and brushed a few dead leaves away before laying a single light green rose at its base.

"Hey, you." Sherry Lipsky said, putting a hand on the stone. She knew he wasn't actually buried there. There wasn't anything left to bury except for a few mementos his parents and friends had gathered. Among them was a solid black Team Go uniform her brothers brought, the different sheens of the materials revealing the pattern.

It was the first time in many years she actually, honestly hugged her oldest brother.

"I can't begin to tell you how much I miss you." She sniffed before going on. "I know you wanted me to be happy and I know Drew will do his best to make me. Under all that buffoonery of his, he's really a good man. He loves our daughter and I hope you aren't upset he calls him Daddy. That's what she needs. We'll still tell her who you are and what you did, why you couldn't be here for her. When she gets old enough, she'll understand."

She got up to return to the hovercraft hidden just behind the tree line, then stopped and kneeled at the monument once more. Fearfully looking around, she decided she was alone. Her fist flared up with green light, a beam of focused power reaching from her fingertip to the polished granite surface.

Satisfied, she got up, her skin slowly fading back to normal. She inspected her handiwork.

The stone read:

James Neil Argus

1982 – 2006

Beloved son

Hero

And right below that, in script identical to the original:

Father

Soulmate

Her new husband was waiting a respectful distance away. He put an arm around her shoulders, kissed her forehead and took her home.

* * *

**_fin_**


	4. Cold Feet?

**_What's the Hitch? - A Trinity Sitch Interlude_**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Ron's feet were cold.

That thought alone was enough to send his sleep addled mind into a moment of absolute panic. This was the last day of his life that he ever wanted to consider having 'cold feet.' He had seen enough in his relatively short life to know better than to dismiss such an omen out of hand. He had gone to bed knowing there was nothing in the world that would cause him to have cold feet on this day!

Yet here it was, that morning and he had cold feet!

It certainly didn't help the butterflies in his stomach.

Slowly his eyes opened, then scrunched back shut. _What time did I finally fall asleep_? He wondered. _And why are my feet cold!_ Not thinking about where he was, he did what he always did when he was chilly in bed. He rolled to the right, toward an expected pool of warmth…

…and promptly landed on the floor, tangled in his blankets.

The reason for his chilly tootsies and the absence of his usual bed mate rushed to him all at once. He wasn't in his apartment sleeping in a nice long, wide 'California queen' size bed. He was in his old room, sleeping in his tiny single bed. _How did I ever sleep in this thing? Or course my feet are cold! They've been sticking out the end of the bed all night!_

He looked at his watch (his clock was on his nightstand in their apartment.) It was just a bit shy of a quarter past seven. _Let's see, got to be at the church about ten, maybe another thirty minutes of sleep if I pull my knees up to my chest!_

The church!

It's that day!

He was in his parent's home, in his childhood room because it was the last night he would spend as just their child. By the time the sun had set on this day he would have started his own family and he would have a wife to keep him warm in bed at night!

Only a few blocks away he knew Kim was waking up to the morning of her wedding. Visions of his beautiful redhead filled his mind. He pictured her rushing downstairs into the arms of her parents and to the usual tortures of the Tweebs.

* * *

Bzzzzzzzzzt…

Kim's hand shot out from the covers, swatting for the snooze bar of her alarm clock. _Where was the blasted thing?_

Slowly she realized it had been moved to the old student desk where her computer used to sit. _Who puts an alarm clock across the room?_ _How can you hit the snooze button that way?_

She was across the room, her hand over the clock when it occurred to her.

She was already up! Dirty, dirty trick, whoever had done it!

Even though the sun was us, she had to think really hard about crawling back into her warm, soft bed!

"Kiiiiiiiiiiiiim!" A voice with a generous helping of western twang managed to stretch her one syllable name into at least three. A young woman who looked like a carbon copy of her save for darker brown hair and nearly blue, turquoise eyes shot into the room, bouncing on the bed.

"Joss, please, no need to shout, I'm not hard of hearing." Kim moaned, holding her temples.

_I am so going to **KILL** Sherry for getting me started on margaritas_! _Let's just have a few drinks while we're out, just us girls_, he mother said after the rehearsal dinner. _What was it about this tequila stuff?_

"Joss, you're what, seventeen now?"

"Eighteen. 'Member? I'm a year older than Jim and Tim!"

"Right." She said, still rubbing her forehead, trying to block out her cousin's near-deafening voice. "Promise me when your girlfriends want to go out for drinks, you stick to cola or something."

"Daddy says when yer hung over ya gotta have some hair of the dog that bit ya!" Kim wasn't sure if she was happy that her younger cousin knew that little tidbit or that her father, Uncle Slim, had seen fit to confer it upon her.

"Gah! The last thing I want right now is more alcohol." She said, remembering the hangover she had two weeks before from Sherry's Bachelorette party.

Heedless of Kim's request for quiet, Joss ran to the loft hatch and yelled, "Aunt ANNNNNNNNE! She's UP!" Moments later the entire bridal party poured into the nearly empty room, Monique and Bonnie fighting for supremacy in the din.

Kim plopped down on the bed, her hands clamped over her ears as Joss, Monique, Bonnie and her mother all tried to talk to her at once. _I can get through this! I can do anything, I can do anything!_

_I can take a ferociously big handful of ibuprofen!_

Kim still could not believe her one-time rival was now one of her bridesmaids. Heck, she was surprised she had agreed to fill in as one at Sherry's wedding. Bonnie had only ever known of her as Shego and her new husband as Doctor Drakken, yet she jumped at the chance when, out of the blue Sherry asked her if she would stand in at the last moment.

Monique theorized that Bonnie's clique had finally evaporated in the waning days of college. Kim's mother even suggested it may be because she was now living on her own, away from the cruelties of her older sisters, Connie and Lonnie.

As far as Kim was concerned, though, she still only asked Bonnie because Ron had asked her to. Ron had warmed up to her considerably after the night of his 'private' proposal (as opposed to the later event where he asked her father for her hand) when she had taken unexplained pity on him and delivered him to her doorstep when his car broke down.

It had taken almost four years for Kim to get that far.

This may have been the first day of the rest of her life with Ron, but at the moment she had just gotten out of bed, she had the world's gorchiest case of cottonmouth, her head was splitting and to top it all off, she had to pee!

Suddenly it dawned on her that she was standing on her bed and had just shouted all of that at the top of her lungs at the four women. She turned a shade of red slightly darker than her hair.

Make that four women. Sticking her head up through the hatch as she came up the stairs was Nana! Kim dropped down on the bed and buried her face in her hands.

"Come on, girls." Anne guided the rest of the women toward the stairs. "This is her day, let's all go down and get ready for breakfast while she gets ready." She turned toward Kim and winked.

Kim mouthed the words "I love you, Mom."

* * *

Ron looked at himself in the mirror. Some time over the last year, after he moved out, his father had taken a scraper to his mirror. It was now clean of the assorted bumper stickers he had accumulated over the years. He wasn't sure, but it looked like the whole dresser had been refinished. It was kind of funny, he mused, that the only stickers he could really remember were the Fearless Ferret and another one that said "No on 65," in reference to the Mouse Ears Channel's now-broken policy that almost canceled his favorite show!

Still, despite the barren room, the lack of posters, the missing action figures and toys, the absence of the lava lamp (which adorned the nightstand on his side of the bed, much to Kim's chagrin!) he still had a strong feeling of déjà vu. Five years had passed since the first time he put on a tux and only the fact he was six inches taller and several inches wider across the chest kept him from putting his father's old baby-blue tux today. Instead he had a custom fit black tux with a white cummerbund and tie to match his yarmulke.

There was a momentary whooshing sound as a shadow passed over his house. Fortunately, he knew that would all soon stop. Global Justice was making certain there would be no surprises this day, but the patrols would soon stop as the FAA-declared no-fly zone went into effect. There were going to be no helicopters, be they villains or just nosey paparazzi, buzzing their wedding day!

One part of his clothing still confounded him. The folds of the bow-tie hung like limp pasta from his collar. This time there was not gripping angst about Kim and some other guy, no worry that their relationship might crash and burn, ruining seventeen years of friendship and love. Today was the ultimate culmination of all of that. No, the only one he could blame today for never learning to tie a bow-tie was himself.

"Rufus?" he pointed at his neck, the déjà vu taking hold once more. At least his little chum could fix him right up! Still, it would be a long time before he scoffed that a bow-tie was 'a skill that is never used in the real world!' (like math or the semi-colon!)

He turned and adopted a lop-sided grin as his father stood in the doorway in a light-colored suit. The camera went off, preserving the image of his only son, about to take the final step in becoming a man, a process that had begun at his Bar Mitzvah almost eight years earlier. (Too bad he'd have to wait a few days to see the picture, his father still thought digital cameras were just a fad!)

His father hugged him, holding him for quite a long time before stepping aside and letting his mother into the embrace.

"Time to go, Ronald. Two hours early for an inter-faith wedding!"

* * *

The wedding was held at the Possible family's church, though Rabbi Katz presided over the ceremony beside their pastor. There was a moment when Ron's mother had been upset they weren't holding it at their temple, but it was their Rabbi that suggested it would be more proper to hold it at the brides place of worship. Prayers where said both in English and in Hebrew. They stood under a white arch and the stomped on a glass wrapped in cloth.

Despite the evening being hot and quite humid for Colorado, the reception was held outside, under the stars. Ron held his new wife's hands, looking into her eyes.

"I wonder why you chose the fourth of July for our wedding day?" Kim said, smiling at him, knowing the answer.

"Because you once told me something, something that I believe now more than ever."

"What's that?" she asked, leaning closer to him as something streaked into the sky from a nearby hill.

"There's still fireworks." He said as the first rockets burst above them.

The missed most of them as they kissed.

* * *

**_Fin_**


End file.
